From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!npoiv!alice!rabbit!jj
Newsgroups: net.college
Title: Re: J. Kirkpatrick--flame--read at own risk
Article-I.D.: rabbit.1135
Posted: Wed Feb 16 12:34:26 1983
Received: Sun Feb 20 09:09:30 1983

	First, I'd like to thank the person who so politely cancelled
this article once for me.  Those of you who have A-news will find
nothing new from the previous article, and those of you who fail to
get the cancellation message likewise.


	Frankly, booing someone off the stage (also chanting them off,
threatening them off, etc) is repulsive to me, simply because the hecklers
are demonstrating that they do NOT want to hear a discussion, they want
to be bullies.
	Suppose for a minute that the person was trying to set up
some perspective for her beliefs and actions.  Suppose further
that the lecture wouldn't make sense until you heard about her
experience, which is, after all, greater than yours.  
	I find the behavior of college students (in my day as well)
who "KNOW" the facts in advance, and who KNOW what the speaker is going to
say, so incredibly thoughtless and anti-free speech that I lack the
ability to make a reasoned argument against them.
	Totalitarian actions like booing someone off a stage
rather than chance having your perceptions of the world changed
by someone with greater experience and expertise are not going to
change anyone's opinion unless they are so insecure as to feel threatened
by your violence.
	For those of you who have seen it, I would like to see a discussion
of the (real, not opinionated) differences between this incident and
the "future belongs to me" scene in Caberet.
	Enough.  Don't even mail me unless you can be polite.